


Near Miss

by HopeCoppice



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Minor Character Death, Near Death Experiences, Other, it's not angsty though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:55:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26233036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopeCoppice/pseuds/HopeCoppice
Summary: R. P. Tyler has had a long and interesting life, complete with frequent brushes with Death.
Relationships: Death & R. P. Tyler, Death/R. P. Tyler
Comments: 14
Kudos: 32
Collections: GO Events - Rare Pairs





	Near Miss

**Author's Note:**

> Yet another rarepair for the minievent on the GO-events sever. Another weird one, which I think can be blamed on the generator but I can't remember for sure.
> 
> Also, I know he's not that old at the end of this fic, but I ran out out of ways to kill the poor man.
> 
> Tw: various ways of potentially dying including explosion, train derailment, heart attack, poisoning, mugging/knife attack, and old age.

R.P. Tyler was an old man. He knew that, and he didn't need the children of Lower Tadfield to remind him quite as often as they did. But being an old man wasn't a terrible thing; in fact, he considered himself very lucky. R.P. Tyler had had more than one brush with Death, in his time, and the fact that he was still alive was not to be taken for granted.

His first encounter with the grim spectre of his own mortality had come when he was a young man, only twenty-three, employed by the local council and responsible for nothing more dangerous than sorting the incoming post when it was delivered. He was just opening a packet addressed in a messy scrawl when something, some voice in his head, told him to step back. He threw the letter across the room, but even as it left his hand it exploded.

R.P. Tyler found himself wrapped tightly in skeletal arms, and when his ears stopped ringing they loosened just enough that he could turn and look into the face of his rescuer. Only... it wasn't quite the sort of face he was expecting to see.

"Death," he blurted out, "is that it then? That's all I get?"

"YOU WERE LUCKY," Death told him gravely, "YOU GOT UNDER THE DESK JUST IN TIME."

"Under the-?" But then the cloaked figure was gone, and R.P. Tyler found himself under a desk after all.

"I was lucky," he told the investigators, trying to convince himself as much as anybody else. "I got under the desk just in time."

He put the encounter from his mind, until he was thirty-five and walking home one night when a man jumped out at him and brandished a knife in his face.

"Give me your money!" R.P. Tyler forked over his wallet, and the thief examined it in dismay. "There's nothing in here!"

"I haven't been paid," he began to explain, but the robber lurched forwards and the knife slipped between bones as if it was gliding through butter. He looked down in horror at where, he was sure, blood ought to be spreading across the fabric of his shirt. Instead, he saw the blade clutched in a bony hand.

"MISSED," Death said, and the thief ran for his life.

At forty-eight, R.P. Tyler sat beside the railway line and watched the train he'd just been travelling on derail.

"Shouldn't you be, you know, collecting souls or whatever?"

"I HAVE A LITTLE TIME," Death told him, "HOW ARE YOU FEELING?"

"Confused," R.P. Tyler admitted, "why do you keep sparing me? Saving me, even, going out of your way."

"I DON'T HAVE MANY FRIENDS," Death admitted, "I THOUGHT IT MIGHT BE NICE TO TRY MAKING ONE."

"But you're supposed to take me to the afterlife, aren't you?"

"EVENTUALLY," Death admitted, "BUT IT'S A FLEXIBLE DEADLINE." Then he was gone.

At fifty-four, R.P. Tyler was standing in a queue at the post office when he recognised a familiar figure in front of him.

"Oh, what now?"

"THE APPLE YOU PICKED ON THE WAY TO WORK, THE ONE YOU ATE WITH LUNCH," Death told him, "IT HAD BEEN TREATED WITH TOO MANY CHEMICALS."

"So this is it? My time's up?"

"NO," Death admitted, "YOU MUST HAVE A VERY STRONG STOMACH."

"Treated with chemicals?" R.P. Tyler frowned. "What if a child had eaten it?"

"WHAT INDEED," Death murmured, and then he was gone.

At sixty-two, R.P. Tyler felt a twinge in his arm as he reached for the remote. When he looked up, he found Death sitting in the armchair across from him.

"Heart attack, is it?"

"SOMETHING LIKE THAT," Death told him, "I CAN'T STOP IT THIS TIME."

"Oh, well. I've had a good run."

But Death reached out a bony hand and shook his head. "I'M SORRY FOR YOUR LOSS." Then he vanished, and R.P. Tyler threw down the remote and rushed upstairs to where his wife sat slumped over her cross-stitch, as if she was only sleeping. He raged, and cursed, and wished it had been him, but Death had come and gone.

When he was seventy-one, R.P. Tyler watched a group of bikers ride towards the old airbase, and noticed that one of them was determinedly not looking at him. Then a man drove past in a flaming car, and he forgot about the bikers altogether. And when, days later, he saw Adam Young steal an apple from his tree, he went out to shout at him. His apple trees were grown without chemical treatments or other poisons, but that wouldn't be true of every apple the boy ever stole. At least these things were washed before they got to the shops - he couldn't just go picking them for himself all over the place.

"HE'LL BE ALL RIGHT," said a voice behind him, and R.P. Tyler sighed.

"What nearly killed me this time?"

"NOTHING," Death answered, and R.P. Tyler scoffed.

"So you're just making social calls now?"

"I'M AFRAID THIS IS BUSINESS." Death sounded genuinely sad about it. "IT'S TIME."

"Oh." He'd got rather used to escaping death, by now. He didn't know how to feel about it. "Why?"

"YOU'RE GETTING OLD," Death told him, "I'M AFRAID IT'S JUST ONE OF THOSE THINGS."

"Right." He took a deep breath; it felt more difficult than it ever had before. "Will I see you again?"

"IF YOU'D LIKE." Death looked uncomfortable. "YOU COULD SAY YOU'VE BEEN FLIRTING WITH DEATH FOR YEARS."

"Have I?" 

“AT LEAST, DEATH HAS BEEN FLIRTING WITH YOU.”

“Oh.” He thought about it. "What does that mean?"

"YOU COULD STAY AT MY PLACE, IF YOU LIKE. HELP ME WITH MY WORK." Death offered him a hand. "OR YOU CAN GO ON. BE WITH YOUR LOVED ONES AGAIN."

"Would I have a job if I went on?"

"THERE ARE NO JOBS IN THE BEYOND. NO DUTIES. NO RESPONSIBILITIES. I'M TOLD IT IS... IDYLLIC."

The late R.P. Tyler considered his options for a moment.

"I'm no freeloader," he told Death, "I like to have an occupation. I accept."

"DONE," Death said, and gathered R.P. Tyler into his skeletal arms one last time, his cloak wrapping around him. And together, they departed the Earth for a time.


End file.
